CRUZ CAMP: Where Campaign Volunteers Live, Work and Play Together in DesMoines

Bang, bang, bang! The urgent knocks came at five minutes to 8. Camp director Ken Brolin, a wiry 64-year-old bursting with energy, bounded up three flights of stairs and raced down the halls, hammering on doors, making sure his volunteers were awake.

“Good morning, Cruz Crew!” Brolin shouted down an empty hallway festooned with red, white, and blue streamers. “Who is going to be the next president of the United States? Ted Cruz!”

More boot camp drill sergeant than camp counselor, he then exhorted his troops to gather in the stairwell in 20 minutes.

“I’m not dressed yet!” a woman hollered from behind closed doors.

“Do us a favor. Get dressed first,” Brolin said, running back down the stairs.

Welcome to Camp Cruz, a defunct business school dormitory where dozens of Cruz supporters have descended — by car, by caravan, by plane — from across the country over the past month with a singular goal: fanning out in subfreezing temperatures to help the senator from Texas win the nation’s first presidential nominating contest on Feb. 1.

If Cruz is going to defeat reality TV star and real estate mogul Donald Trump in the race for the Republican nomination, it will be on the backs of these volunteers, the bedrock of a ground organization that Iowa insiders say is superior to Trump’s.